A Baron for Becky Read Free

ordered, with all the hauteur of
his generations of ducal ancestors, and the men—like the curs they
were—responded to the voice of command and turned the lantern away.
In the returning shadows, six large male shapes loomed over
him.
    “Who the hell
are you, and what are you doing here?” Aldridge demanded. “Do you
know where Perry’s gone?”
    “It be the
Merry Marquis,” said one of the men, pushing his way through from
the back. Now there was a stroke of luck! Smite had sent one of his
chief lieutenants. What did they call the man? Tiny. That was it. A
typically laconic comment on his enormous size.
    “Hello, Tiny,”
Aldridge said. “You’re a step away from your usual haunts.”
    Big Tiny might
be, but he hadn’t come unscathed through a life of violence. His
nose had been broken several times, was flattened and twisted
towards his right cheek, which bore a livid knife scar from the
outer edge of the eye to the corner of his thick, misshapen lips.
He’d been beaten around the ears, too, many times, leaving them
swollen and deformed.
    Aldridge knew,
though, that the rough appearance hid an incisive mind. Smite
looked for intelligence in his lieutenants, and Tiny’s presence
here, who knew how many days from London, and Smite’s control, was
evidence of how much Smite trusted him. In this instance,
intelligence was all to the good, if Aldridge played his game
well.
    One of the
other men grunted a question. ‘Shall I take his head off?’ Aldridge
translated. Thankfully, Tiny shook his head. “Smite likes ’im.”
Useful to know, but not something to count on. Rumour had it,
Smite’s rise to the top had been aided by a childhood friend,
killed by his own hand when the friend dared to disagree with
him.
    The crime
lord’s lieutenant turned back to Aldridge. “Whacha doin’ here,
m’lord?” he demanded. “And whassat ya got on?”
    Aldridge looked
down at his improvised shawl kilt as if he’d never seen it
before.
    “This? The
piece of perfection in the garden was most insistent. Didn’t want
her daughter seeing my...” he waggled his eyebrows and made a
graphic gesture with one hand, prompting a guffaw from the man who
wanted to decapitate him.
    “A skirt wiv a
little un? Where is she?” Tiny wanted to know.
    “Gone. She was
in a hurry, said she and the little girl had a ship to catch. She
couldn’t tell me where Perry was, either. Bastard. He’ll be sorry
when I find him. Drugged me, the lowlife, treacherous cur. Stole my
horse and my clothes. Swine. Exquisite female, though. Worth the
trip, if she’d have had me. Pity she wouldn’t stop to... chat.”
    Another guffaw
from Decapitator, and a pungent comment about a better use for a
female than chatting.
    “’ow long?”
Tiny was not to be distracted.
    Enough
friendliness. Time to remind them of their place again. He trotted
out the ducal manner. Nostrils flared, chin lifted, a glare infused
with scorn and disdain.
    Tiny flinched,
but persisted. “I needs to ask, m’lord; ’ow long since ya seen the
skirt? She belongs to Smite. ’Er and the little un.”
    “Really?” said
Aldridge. “Dammit, that’s the last straw. I was promised first
chance. Perry, damn his cowardly, lying eyes, said he was leaving
the country, and she needed a new protector. And all the time...
Smite? Really? I say! Do you think he’d consider an offer?”
    “We ’ave to
find ’er first, m’lord. ’Ow long since ya seen her?”
    Aldridge
sighed. “Really, I don’t know. It was around dusk. How long ago was
that? After she left, I... I suppose I passed out again.”
    Tiny let out a
string of profanities, some Aldridge had never heard, and several
that sounded painful, if not impossible. “Doxy’s got ten hours on
us, but we ’ave to search,” he told the others, and began
organising his men to search the garden, the house, the nearby
village of Niddberrow, and the surrounding countryside.
    He was near
Niddberrow? The last Aldridge remembered, he